In known ATR or POX systems the reformer must be heated up to a sufficiently high temperature before the hydrocarbon and the oxygen containing feed can safely be admitted to allow autoignition of the combustible feedstream and allow flame propagation.
In traditional ATR reformers a dedicated start-up (SU) burner has been used to heat-up the ATR reactor to high temperature (i.e. 800-1000° C.), which is above the autoignition temperature at atmospheric pressure before introduction of the hydrocarbon containing feed stream and the oxygen containing feed stream. The dedicated SU burner must be removed and replaced by a main process burner before the feedstream is introduced. These known labour intensive work steps are demanding and time consuming as heavy equipment needs to be handled at very high temperatures. Furthermore in the known processes the connecting flanges must be ensured to be leak tight after the mounting which means that leak test must be carried out also in hot conditions after the main process burner has been mounted.
Thus there is a need for a new process enabling faster and more efficient start-up of ATR/POXs and similar reforming systems.